Developing a Writer’s Mindset It is not often that writers lack ideas or technical ability to ‘write the damn book’. Often the reasons are psychological and can be greatly assisted by putting some effort into creating your very own Writer-Friendly Mind.

Who needs this?

It is not only those writers driven with a desire to write a novel that they have burning inside of them who are struggling with their books – or those who, having achieved the success of publication are now under pressure to do it again. It can be the new writers or commercial or academic writers. If someone wants to be known as an expert in their field; the ‘go to’ person, everyone’s favourite on LinkedIn – then it helps to have written a book “ah, yes, I mention this in my book”. The room gasps. All eyes turn to look at her. She’s written a book!

Your Writing Mind

This is where it can help to consider the idea of mindset and what you can do about it. You may have heard of the theory of mindsets (Dweck, 2006) which focused on the possibility of growth through learning and struggle. This well-researched concept sees people as malleable – which is further supported by research evidencing that our brains remain plastic ‘neuroplasticity’ and that we continue to develop and grow and can put in place practices to assist this process.

What does all this mean for you and your book?

In his brilliant book, the Science of Storytelling, Will Storr begins

“We know how this ends. You’re going to die and so will everyone you love….”.

It sounds like a pessimistic note to start on but instead he is pointing out that rather than despair in the face of this possibility, we create a narrative for ourselves, for our own lives, filling them with hopeful goals.”Stories are everywhere. Stories are us”. Your book is the story within your story and it has the place you create for it. Writing is an act of hope.

Off the Page is where some of the ‘work’ happens

Hope is a future-based concept, it requires you to be able to imagine something that does not yet exist and work towards that. This is what you are doing when you are finally creating and putting your book together. Snyder’s model of hope as envisaging a desired outcome (or goal if you like goal-speak.) and having both the willpower and the waypower to get there. This is where you can do a bit of work to help yourself, to act in your own best interests.

Willpower is a topic for another day

Hint: try being kind to yourself, eating well, sleeping well and working in line with your values.

Waypower

This is all about how to generate solutions to the things that get in your way. These may be practical, technical, anything but they will often be psychological.

Mindful attention

It helps to give yourself time to acknowledge, notice and pay attention to your own thinking on what the ‘roadblocks’ are, it could be self-doubt, self-sabotage, a mean inner critic, a strong negativity bias. These are some of the psychological issues that can be addressed. It can take time and attention to notice what they are and where they come from and then to find a way around them, giving them their rightful place in your personal story.

Ideas generation

You can generate ideas to overcome your roadblocks, just as you generate ideas for your story. This may require a degree of self-compassion. Now, self-compassion is not the same as being ‘soft’ on yourself or ‘letting yourself off the hook’; it’s actually working in your own very best interests moving towards what you value. A great way to do this is with a coach although there are methods you can self-coach or self-help, such as:

Famously, Julia Cameron’s ‘Morning Pages’ have been helping writers since the 1970s. This is a lovely practice of getting up in the morning and writing freely for 3 pages in your notebook for no one else to see but for you to just write whatever comes into your mind; you could start with a shopping list, the niggles that have woken you up in the night, what you might eat for dinner later – anything – and then just let your hand move freely over the page. This has the effect of ‘unblocking’ ideas that were lurking in there, refusing to come to the surface or connections that just were not happening. This practice allows you to stop planning and just engage with the moment and what your mind is exploring or experiencing.

Another simple and yet very effective practice is to go out for a walk or run; doing something physical and connecting in nature has some magic about it. Seriously, there is science behind this but you may have noticed already if you have been out walking during lockdown that ideas can just occur to you when outside. Capture them! Take your phone and just give yourself a voice note of the thought that has occurred or it risks being lost in the ether.

Read! This does not have to relate to what you are writing about, in fact, it is rather good if it does not. When you read and absorb yourself in other people’s ideas, you are reconstructing what someone else has created in your own mind, making your own sense and – once again – getting connections firing up!

Never read without a pen and notebook or your trusty voice memo available. Never be without a pen, notebook or voice recording device so that you can capture your ideas as and when they occur and use them in the time that you are able to allow yourself to write.

Finding your way around those roadblocks, finding your WAYPOWER is how to get there.

Read more about Nicola Morgan and her other articles HERE

‘We Are The Positive Psychology People’

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Here is the good news

You do not need to try and rid yourself of those ‘negative’ emotions.  Struggle is a natural part of life and each of those negative thoughts probably has a positive partner.  Sarah doubts her work because she cares about it.  She procrastinates because she is afraid – again showing that this is important to her, so much so it is frightening.

So, what do we do with this perpetual struggle then?

Imagine you are in a boat sailing towards your perfect life on an island where everything that you want is there – all of your goals, all that you most long for.  Now, on that boat are some demons, they will not hurt you but they are very very frightening.  As you sail towards the island, as soon as you get near, the demons appear – terrifying you and telling you to turn away.  As you turn away, they disappear again and you are relieved but you are not heading towards your island anymore.  You try to think rationally, how can you get rid of those demons; can you negotiate with them?  Can you scare them off?  Can you throw them overboard?

You turn back towards the island with a new plan, you are going to fight those demons.  Sure enough, as you get close to the island, the demons appear – remember, they cannot hurt you, they are just very frightening.  You tell them to go, you threaten them, you negotiate, you haggle.  Nothing works,  they become more powerful and terrifying, you turn away from the island again and the demons disappear.

Sit for a moment and breath.  Breathing in, breathing out, noticing your breath calming your body.  Those demons are your personal pain and struggle and a normal part of existence.  To get to the island, you can notice that they are there, you can acknowledge your reaction but you can detach yourself from them.  You can also notice that you have courage and a remarkable ability to move ahead, acknowledging the presence of those demons but sailing towards your island life anyway.  You realise you don’t need to beat them or rationalise or negotiate, you move towards your island life by sitting with them.

You sail on.

What you have just cultivated is a bit of psychological flexibility; the ability to be in the present moment, connect with your thoughts and feelings and persist anyway in pursuit of your values or value-based goals.

So, how can Sarah use the Demons story to help her become a better writer?

By using Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) with her writing coach, Sarah was able to gain a sense of present moment awareness.  She could notice how she was feeling through the practice of mindful breathing.  Grounding herself, pushing her feet into the floor, acknowledging and accepting what was going on.  Then she would think about her values – about what was really important to her and focus on those values.  Then, she would take a committed action towards those values, however small.  In fact preferably, something small.

Find your values

What would your perfect day be like?  Daydream and write it down.

From this perfect day, you can mine it for your values; what can you identify as having true value.  These values are a great tool.  If you remind yourself of them and keep moving towards them, little by little, you will be doing the right thing for you.  When thoughts arise, you can notice them and think whether to pursue that thought by asking yourself ‘is that helpful’?  If it is, allow that thought some time, if it is not then – sail on.

How to begin notice what you are thinking and feeling

Pause for a moment, look around and notice five things that you can see, notice five things that you can hear.  Notice and feel everything that is in contact with your body.  This is drawing your attention to the present moment.

Once you are there, in the present moment, you can start to notice that what we see and experience constantly changes.  It is from this place that you can decide what action to take to move towards the values that are precious to you.  You can commit to an action, preferably a small one.  Small is the place to start.  This is how you will move towards what is important to you.

It is possible to create a successful writer mindset.

Remember, blocks, procrastination, self-doubt, the doubt of others, stress, fear, these are all a natural part of the process and with the right mindset, you can change the way you deal with all of these so that you don’t turn away from your dreams, you keep sailing towards them.

Nicola Morgan MSc is a Positive Psychology Coach for Writers. Read more about Nicola Morgan and her other articles HERE

‘We Are The Positive Psychology People’

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